As the ultimate weekend of the 2026 Winter Olympic Video games involves a detailed, many athletes are returning to their 9-to-5 jobs, with some even retiring from their sport for good. However hanging up their skis doesn’t imply they’ve to depart their aggressive previous behind. Olympic champions are getting a second begin on the $280 billion financial institution Goldman Sachs—and no monetary experience is required.
“I didn’t necessarily have the financial background history that other candidates would have, so [Goldman Sachs’] patience with me was incredible,” Ryan Held, a two-time gold medal Olympic swimmer who began as a threat analyst one 12 months in the past, tells Fortune. “They just wanted to see me succeed.”
Held is in good firm at Goldman Sachs, the place former execs are muscling their distinct ability units to achieve new careers. Most Olympians and athletic champions retire from their sport by their mid-30s, looking for ardour in a unique line of labor.
Fortuitously for elite athletes on the job hunt, the famously selective financial institution is seeking to faucet into the identical expertise that rowing stars, aggressive swimmers, and Tremendous Bowl champions deliver to the desk.
And apparently, there’s rather more in widespread between athletics and banking than what meets the attention. Jacqueline Arthur, head of human capital administration at Goldman Sachs, tells Fortune that competing in among the largest sporting occasions can lay the groundwork to succeed on the U.S. financial institution.
“Olympians and competitive athletes generally are a really interesting talent pool for us, given these incredibly valuable attributes like resilience, leadership, ability to manage time, and performing at the highest level under pressure,” Arthur says. “These things are valuable in any career, but especially here.”
Now, a litany of sports activities stars are buying and selling the Olympic area for the workplace flooring of the Wall Avenue titan.
The Olympic medalists who began their second careers at Goldman
Held is nearly one 12 months into his function as a threat analyst on the financial institution, however only a handful of summers in the past, he was topping the winners podium on the Paris Olympics.
Ryan Held, a two-time gold medal Olympic swimmer and threat analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Kristy Sparow / Stringer / Getty Photographs
The longtime swimmer is a two-time Olympic gold medalist; Held gained the 4x100m freestyle relay on the 2016 Rio video games alongside Michael Phelps and his fellow teammates, whereas he was nonetheless a younger science pupil at North Carolina State College. And in a mic drop second, he conquered the occasion as soon as once more on the 2024 Paris Olympics, then swiftly introduced his retirement from the game.
The three-time world-record holder by no means thought-about a profession in banking up till leaving the game, figuring he’d possible work for an environmental group. However Held diverged from his tutorial background in conservation biology after talking with a fellow prolific swimmer who discovered a post-pool profession at Goldman Sachs. Held questioned if he was the proper match, having identified so little about banking. However upon a re-assessment into the corporate, he discovered one other calling in threat evaluation. And ever since taking the leap, the 30-year-old has been leveraging each his athletic prowess and STEM abilities within the banking trade.
“I didn’t study finance… But after talking with him, I discovered that there’s so much more to the bank,” Held tells Fortune. “What’s great is that not everyone is a Nobel laureate, or [come from] prestigious universities…[If] you’re the best of what you can do, that’s it. That’s what they’re looking for, no matter what: perseverance, grit, determination.”
Hiring top-notch rivals is not any new fad for Goldman; the financial institution has been welcoming Olympains to its bankroll for many years. Rob Williams, a managing director in world banking and markets for Goldman Sachs, has spent his total 14-year company profession on the firm since retiring from rowing in his 20s. Proper after Williams gained the silver medal within the London 2012 Summer season Olympics, the British athlete opted to bow out on a profession excessive, then chased a brand new profession with longevity.
“Rowing is not a well paid sport,” Williams tells Fortune. “It can be okay for a few years, but you’re not going to be retiring off the back of being good at rowing.”
Ezra Shaw / Workers / Getty Photographs
Similar to Held, Williams solely had an educational background within the sciences on the time of his Olympic retirement—however that didn’t cease him from becoming a member of Goldman Sachs as an affiliate in overseas trade ahead buying and selling in 2012. The then-27-year-old solid a brand new path in finance, drawn to the financial institution’s work setting that energizes him like rowing had for years.
“I wanted to do a role where I could have defined parameter success,” Williams continues. “When you’re racing, you’ll have days when you go out and you’re so nervous before your race, and then you finish, and you’re so happy. You have this range of emotions going through…I need that level of stimulation.”
What abilities former Olympians deliver to the desk—and why the financial institution is the right place for athletes
Standing out in right this moment’s cutthroat job market is not any simple feat, and it’s even more durable when vying for a gig on the monetary companies large. In 2025, greater than 1 million skilled candidates utilized to Goldman Sachs’ open roles, and over 360,000 candidates battled for roughly 2,600 summer season internship spots: lower than 1% making the reduce. It’s essential that candidates make an impression to face out from the pack.
Dominating in sports activities is only one solution to be a focus for a hiring supervisor, past flexing a string of Wall Avenue stints or Ivy League levels. Athletes might not at all times have an MBA, however by Olympic video games and Tremendous Bowl championships, they’re skilled to work at an “elite level in the highest pressure environment.”
“It’s exciting to see these Olympians who may not have been trained necessarily in financial services,” Arthur says, including that it doesn’t take lengthy to get them up to the mark. What Goldman is absolutely on the lookout for isn’t their enterprise savvy, however moderately their “innate traits, like discipline, commitment to excellence, meticulous preparation, strategic thinking, focusing on continuous improvement, and being open to coaching.”
Held says he introduced three key abilities to the financial institution that he realized from years of swimming on the worldwide degree: camaraderie, cultural connectedness, and time administration. In the meantime, Williams acknowledged that Goldman Sachs “likes to hire skill sets,” and he was the right candidate, having cultivated intense work stamina from finishing his PhD and rowing on the prime degree. The retired athlete additionally brings the Olympic “every inch matters” mindset to his present function, striving to get higher every day. Athletes looking for their new skilled ardour upon retirement needs to be looking for vitality match, the champion rower advises.
“Find something that lives at the pace that you were used to with your sport,” Williams says. “There’s lots of different types of corporate jobs, and if you finish doing sport at a high level, you’re probably used to that emotional volatility.”
